UNDERSTANDING SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT AND ITS APPLICABILITY IN THE PHILIPPINES

Ma. Gloria V. Talavera

Abstract

This is an exploratory study to determine the critical elements of supply chain management (referred to as SCM constructs) and the specific strategies associated with each SCM construct (SCM components). The study also aims to validate the extent of adoption of these SCM components by selected companies in the Philippines. The SCM construct development and validation process involved the following steps: (a) generating the SCM constructs from literature, (b) assessing their reliability and validity, and (c) validating the adoption of SCM constructs. The assessment of the instrument’s reliability was donethrough the Internal Consistency Method with Cronbach coefficient alpha as the relevant coefficient while content and construct validity were done through expert reviews and exploratory factor analyses, respectively. Results show thatout of the twenty-five originally developed SCM components, eighteen were retained. The SCM-related strategies were categorized into three: supply chain collaboration, supply chain operations, and coordination mechanisms. The study was able to validate the claims in the literature that SCM is not just about process orientation but about the relationship of the stakeholders in the supply chain.